Whether you believe global warming is real or not, we invite you to read what we have uncovered on the many pages of this site… and beyond. Remember, knowledge is power.

When Did Global Warming Start / The Talk of the Town

When did global warming start? It was about the second half of the 20th century, when the global warming had become a talk of the town. In year 1997, the problem of global warming, or to be more exact the problem of human contribution into this natural phenomenon, was addressed officially, when the world’s largest industrialized countries agreed to reduce greenhouse gases emissions as the effort to stop the rapid progression of the global warming.

However, global warming is the process, which started long and long ago before humans signed Kyoto Protocol. In order to understand when global warming began, we should look back for many and many years ago – in the times much earlier before humans devised international treaties and even much earlier before we learned to burn first fossil fuel, which was wood.

Global warming in its broad meaning is the increase of the average air temperature near the Earth surface. This is a natural process, which started about 18,000 years ago. (Yes, it may be surprising, but those were not humans, who caused global warming by burning gasoline in their cars…)

In fact, at that old time large territories in America, Europe, and Asia were covered by huge ice glaciers and the average world temperature was about 18 degrees Celsius below zero. That was the real Ice Age, lasting for many thousands of years. However, scientists say that every 100 000 years planet Earth warms up to allow all its inhabitants enjoy warm climate for about 15 000 or 20 000 years before the next Ice Age period. And this is exactly the timeframe in which we live now.

In other words, now the Earth warms up more rapidly than it used to in the past, thus bringing us closer to the next Ice Age. Some scientists say that instead of thousands of years before it happens again, we may have only hundreds of years left.

All the steps, developed and implemented widely these days, are definitely of benefits for people, because they are called to make our living cleaner, healthier and more natural. Even if we cannot stop the cyclic climate changes on Earth, it is still reasonable not to accelerate them, isn’t it?